1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a battery and in particular a battery comprising a plurality of cells, in particular lithium-ion cells, connected in series.
The present invention is more specifically concerned with the charging of a battery of this kind.
2. Description of the Prior Art
If a battery of this kind is charged using a single charging circuit connected to the external connection contacts of the battery, in the usual way, and if said cells are not perfectly identical, as is usually the case, one cell may charge faster than the others and therefore be damaged if charging is continued, even though the other cells have not reached their maximum charge. This is the case with the lithium-ion technology, for example.
To prevent this an electronic monitoring system is generally employed so that as soon as the voltage across one cell begins to rise relative to the voltage across the other cells the current charging that cell is limited in order to avoid damaging the cell.
A particular drawback of a solution of this kind is that it is relatively complex and costly.
A particular aim of the present invention is to avoid this drawback.